Socialeads, founded by Larry Hitchcock and Matthew Salzer, is the first investment for Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co.'s Cream City Venture Capital fund, which started last year. The startup will receive up to $85,000 in seed funding through the partnership.

Socialeads won Northwestern Mutual's reverse pitch event, which kicked off Milwaukee's startup week in October. In fact, that's how Hitchcock and Salzer met.

Both Hitchcock, a self-described serial entrepreneur who lives in Los Angeles, and Salzer, a software engineer and solutions architect, went to the pitch event on their own. At a networking event after the reverse pitch, Hitchcock asked who was the best solutions architect and software engineer. David Rice, Northwestern Mutual's senior product manager for digital innovation, pointed to Salzer.

Hitchcock and Salzer connected and started talking about solutions to the problems Northwestern Mutual pitched around enhancing market potential and referral friction.

"The things that would allow the financial representative to be there for the client and all the information to understand what's happening in the client's life is right there on social media," Hitchcock said. "Knowing more about each person is something they need to be able to do. But keeping up with hundreds, if not thousands, of contacts is exhausting."

The idea is to have a platform that can recognize the content and context of a post on social media and provide insights into what action from a financial representative would be appropriate.

"There are moments in time when people are more apt to think about financial products," Hitchcock said. "Machine learning is how our platform will get more accurate and provide insights that enable everyone to understand moments in time with each client."

Facebook is changing the way its users will experience posts by highlighting those shared by people rather than publishers and advertisers with the intend to get users to engage again, making time spent on social media more "meaningful."
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Right now, the team is working to have a fully functioning prototype tool. The goal is to have it completed in the next three to four months.

They developed a pitch and presented it to Northwestern Mutual at the beginning of January. Socialeads was announced as the winner last week from a pool of 19 applications. In addition to the seed investment, Socialeads will have access to mentors from Northwestern Mutual and workspace at the company's downtown headquarters.

Salzer said the backing from Northwestern Mutual is "invaluable."

Since Rice made the initial connection to spark Socialeads, he feels personally invested in the company's success.

"I feel like we’ve created something here that we need to nurture and help," he said. "There’s a huge market opportunity for this. There’s also a great story of entrepreneurship here in Milwaukee if we do this right."